Chronic Lyme Disease Summit – anxiety, pyroluria & more

The Chronic Lyme Disease Summit runs from April 4th to 11th so I’m sharing some additional information for you.

The response to this summit, hosted by Dr. Jay Davidson, is out of this world already. Lyme disease is much more talked about than most realize and more people are affected by Lyme disease each year than breast cancer!

Many people with chronic Lyme disease have chronic anxiety too and the focus of my interview is how to use targeted individual amino acids GABA and tryptophan to top up low levels of GABA and serotonin while the Lyme is being addressed.

This gives Lyme sufferers resolution from much of the anxiety (if not all) right away and they don’t need to resort to meds like benzodiazepines or anti-depressants (like the women in the study below). There is also a big connection between Lyme disease and pyroluria and I cover this too.

Here is one study that shows that Lyme-anxiety is very real and that panic attacks may actually be trigged by the Lyme disease:

describes the histories of three patients with panic-like episodes that turned out to be related to underlying, previously unsuspected tick-borne diseases.

Each woman experienced symptoms that are not usual in panic disorder but are typical of neurological Lyme disease, including exquisite sensitivity to light, touch, and sounds, joint pain often in combination with cognitive changes including mental fogginess and loss of recent memory, and some degree of bizarre, shifting, and often excruciating neurological pain. Because these symptoms are atypical of primary panic disorder, they were very helpful in alerting the clinician to suspect an underlying physical illness.

In each case, the results of testing revealed positive hallmarks of disseminated Lyme and other tick-borne diseases [ including Lyme borreliosis caused by the spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, babesiosis, and ehrlichiosis.] Since beginning treatment with intensive doses of appropriate antimicrobial medications for their tick-borne infections, all three patients have become free of panic attacks.

Treatment of their infections by a specialist in Lyme disease allowed one of the women to discontinue anti-anxiety medication completely and another to reduce the dose of medication to occasional use only. The third patient is no longer anxious but her depression is resolving more slowly despite the ongoing use of an antidepressant. Two of the patients have also needed ongoing medication for pain and other symptoms of late-stage, neurological Lyme disease

Lyme disease is one of the fastest growing infectious diseases in the United States. It can remain dormant for years and then later mimic a number of psychiatric illnesses, including anxiety disorders, mood disturbances, psychosis, and autism-like behaviors. It can be further complicated by the presence of co-infections.

Tune in to the summit to hear more about Lyme and anxiety and the amino acids GABA and tryptophan (and the Lyme-pyroluria connection).

(Please note: I’m not a Lyme disease expert – people seek me out for help with their anxiety and many of them also happen to have Lyme disease. The information we covered in the interview is very powerful for anxiety whether or not Lyme disease is a factor.)

Here are a selection of the many excellent Lyme interviews you’ll hear:

Dr. Jay Davidson, DC, PScD: Heavy Metal Detox and Lyme Disease

Connie Strasheim: Lyme Disease and Cancer

Jack Tips, PhD, CCN: The Gut Microbiome and Lyme disease

Shayne Morris, PhD: Biofilm, Bugs and Bacteriophage

Bradley Bush, ND: A Lab Test that Actually Works for Detecting Lyme Disease

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Comments

This is not a comment nor is it about CBD, which I have tried and did not feel a difference. It is about pyroluria. How much zinc and B6 and how many times should I give it to my 9 year old son, who has most of the pyroluria symptoms. I just purchased the zinc liquid and wanted to know besides the pyroluria questionere what lab test again will confirm if he really has it or not.

What zinc and B6 vitamins do you recommends for children under 16, mine are 9 and under.

Ivy
The dosing and timing depends on each individual. I typically start with 100mg B6 and 30mg zinc for adults and half that for kids. I encourage you to be well-informed and get my book “The Antianxiety Food Solution” (http://amzn.to/2dqpzsh) which has a whole chapter on pyroluria. It also covers why urine testing is not always accurate. If you want to test be aware you may get a false positive. If you’re going to test I would test with DHA lab https://www.pyroluriatesting.com/

Hi Trudy,
I am very confused and was wondering if you might be able to help with this. A practitioner suggested I might have pyroluria back in 2011. I had been having numbness and tingling in my hands and feet and severe cramping in my legs at night.

I did some research and almost everything on your questionnaire applied to me. Eventually, I tested positive for pyroluria. It was borderline, but was done when I was under no stress. It turns out I have Lyme as well, but the angst and fear have been with me for life.

In 2011 I started with pyridoxine and eventually went to p5p. It took some time, but the numbness and tingling gradually went away. In hindsight, so did the quick temper, anger and depression.

Fast forward to current doctor who recommended I stop the p5p. I did so a few months ago and after a period of high stress I had horrible social anxiety, extreme for the situation. The leg cramping returned as well.

Once the stress was over things calmed down. I started taking zinc to see if it would help. Did the taste taste and was taking only 30mg with 20 pyridoxine. The numbness started up again and I had my b6 tested through labcorp. It was quite high????

I have been off the zinc for two weeks or more and my numbness, tingling and cramps are getting worse daily. Now I’ve started with the quick temper and social anxiety is much higher. . I really believe I need the p5p and wish I’d never stopped it. .

I’m trying to make sense of how I could have such a high serum level but have all these returning symptoms. Do you have any insight on this? Is it possible I can’t metabolize the pyridoxine?

HI Trudy,
Im confused about zinc..I bought one at food town and it made me so angry n bitchy and i bought another one at vitamin shop n nothing of the sort..i mean the rage was so obvious it was frightening..and then i felt really itchy like yeasty..Does zinc really target yeast and why did that one make me so bitchy and gave me pain in my toes?